Journal of Student Writing
Number 36
Robert Ross and the Value of Dehumanization
Ella Ratz
I
n Timothy Findley’s The Wars, the lives of animals shape Robert
Ross’s identity in the war by constructing his sense of morality. This
leads Robert to value dehumanization and reject faith in humanity.
Valuing dehumanization is counterintuitive because we typically see it as
humans becoming machine-like or bestial. In this essay, however, I am going to use dehumanization in a positive sense to describe the alternative,
life-affirming value-system that Robert learns from animals. Valuing dehumanization is also counterintuitive because the traditional chain of being positions humans as superior to animals and puts their intelligence
above that of animals. Yet, the novel shows that animals are not only equal
but superior through Robert’s experiences. The moral value of dehumanization is portrayed through Robert’s valuing of instinct and life, innocence, and belonging. Throughout The Wars, the rejection of faith in humanity for its immorality is demonstrated through the violence and destruction of war.
Animal instincts are what have kept Robert alive during the war
more than anything. There are numerous occasions when Robert knows
something bad is about to happen simply because of animals reacting: “It
was odd. Robert looked up. There should have been birds… Then he
heard a rush of wings. Something exploded… Robert ducked as a whoosh
of air threw him forward” (179). Robert can prepare himself for the
dangers ahead simply by paying attention to the animals surrounding him.
And even when animals are not around, he engages within himself his
own animalistic instincts. During one of his nights in the dugout, Robert
cannot manage to fall asleep. This is not because he isn’t tired; in fact, he
is exhausted. His body will not allow him to sleep because it knows what
will happen if Robert is left unaware: “sleep was dangerous. The animal
memory in you knew that. No matter what your mind said, your body
didn’t listen. Part of you stayed awake” (91). By using second person
narration, this passage seems almost like a conversation Robert is having
with himself, potentially with his own animal instincts. And he knows that
these instincts are right and will keep him alive.
The incredibility of life itself is what Robert learns from animals
and leads him to value dehumanization. Robert trusts animal instincts to
keep him alive because he appreciates life so much and therefore sees in
Journal of Student Writing
Number 36
animals the wonder of life. As Robert treks through the crater that was
once a trench, he finds that not one of his men survived the explosion. On
his way back to base, he sets a rat free from a hole in the ground: “Robert
wondered afterwards if setting the rat free had been a favour—but in the
moment that he did it he was thinking: here is someone still alive. And the
word alive was amazing” (114). Amongst all the death and destruction of
the moment, an animal has survived. It is relevant to note that Robert
states that “someone” and not “something” is still alive; this shows that
Robert holds animals on the same level as, if not higher than, humans.
Epigraphs are used in literature and poetry to illustrate an
important theme in the author’s writing. In this novel, the epigraph is a
quotation from Euripides: “never that which is shall die.” This is very
similar to Officer Rodwell’s letter to his daughter that, along with the toad,
Robert becomes responsible for. In this letter Rodwell writes: “I am alive
in everything I touch… Everything lives forever. Believe it. Nothing dies.”
(135). Therefore, a concept revealed through the novel is that life itself has
greater power and meaning than death and that it exceeds death simply by
a fact of existence. This is a very profound concept, and it is one that
Robert continuously connects to animals. The life of his beloved older
sister Rowena is reflected in the life of her rabbits, and when she dies, they
are killed too. Robert feels happy and at peace whenever he spends time
with horses because to him they are alive, separate from the death and
sorrow he is surrounded by. An example of this is when he is riding along
the road at night:
Now he was back in the saddle—almost asleep—and the
guns had fallen quiet. The rain beat down in squalls and
there was hardly any light. The only sound was the falling
rain and the grinding of the wagon wheels. All at once,
Robert’s horse shied and refused to proceed. Robert was
jarred into wakefulness. (182)
When Robert dismounts his horse, he sees Clifford Purchas—a soldier he
went to school with—dead, sprawled out face first in the mud. Robert is so
at peace on his horse he nearly falls asleep, but when he is forced to get
off, he is once again jolted into the horrors of war. Robert sees dehumanization as positive because to him animals represent life transcending death.
To Robert, animals are also the embodiment of innocence. They
are simple creatures, free from sin. This is why he always feels the need to
protect them. Since childhood, Robert has loved and been the guardian of
Rowena, who herself was innocent. This is why, whenever an animal is
harmed, he is reminded of her and her innocence, and when an innocent
Journal of Student Writing
Number 36
person is harmed, he notices the animals surrounding him. When he is
required to kill an injured horse on the ship, his mind immediately goes to
the death of his sister: “He took his aim. His arm wavered. His eyes burned
with sweat. Why didn’t someone come and jump on his back and make
him stop? He fired. A chair fell over in his mind” (60). His first inclination
is to protect, not kill, an animal, which is why he is inwardly pleading for
someone else to step in and make him stop. Another significant scene that
illustrates the link Robert has between innocence and animals is the shooting of the German soldier. Robert kills the German because he thinks the
soldier is reaching for a gun, when really he is trying to get out his binoculars. As awful as his mistake is, Robert realizes something else:
It was even worse than that. Lying beside the German was
a modified Mauser rifle of the kind used by snipers. He
could have killed them all. Surely that had been his intention. But he’d relented. Why? The bird sang. One long
note descending: three that wavered on the brink of sadness. That was why. It sang and sang and sang, till Robert
rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him
to the day he died. (131)
Robert is haunted by this act because of the innocence of the eighteenyear-old boy he kills. The bird above crying out in sorrow echoes the sadness of both this killing of an innocent and a loss of Robert’s own innocence.
Robert’s process of dehumanization also comes from the belonging he finds with animals and likewise the associations of animals with the
people he belongs with. Whenever Robert is with animals, he feels comfortable and at home. We first see this in his encounter with the coyote.
Robert has no worry whatsoever that the animal will attack him, or that he
will get lost in following it. He follows until they reach their destination,
which is, as Findley puts it simply, “safe” (27). Later on in the novel, we get
to see where Robert goes in his mind when he dreams of home: “when he
fell on his bed, fully clothed, he fell through a clouded countryside of
small white barns and cows in yards and he slept to the sound of the water
lapping his father’s feet and of nightingales in an unnamed wood” (167).
Robert’s “happy place” is filled with cows and birds and excludes human
creatures.
The people Robert feels at home with also have a connection to
animals. I have already mentioned the connection to Rowena, so I will
turn to the others. Rodwell is his fellow officer and friend who runs an
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Number 36
unofficial veterinarian hospital in the trenches. This demonstrates that
both Rodwell and Robert share an obligation to care about these creatures
and protect them. Rodwell also draws Robert in his sketchbook: “in all of
them—on every page, the drawings were of animals. Of maybe a hundred
sketches, Robert’s was the only human form. Modified and mutated—he
was one with the others” (138). Rodwell makes the visual connection between Robert and those he really belongs with in the drawings. Barbara
D’Orsey is Robert’s lover for a short period, and while the sex itself is not
portrayed as particularly intimate, they do have a moment of comfort together. Just after seeing Taffler, they exit the room: “they were very tense.
Then Barbara turned and took Robert’s hand. She leaned against his side.
At first, he didn’t seem to know what to do—but finally he put both his
arms around her shoulders and held her for a very long time with his chin
on top of her head… Everything they’d done was like a dance between two
birds” (155). Their one very emotionally close moment is compared to bird
courtship, which is what birds do to recognize each other for compatible
mates. Finally, Harris is the soldier that Robert genuinely loved, who
passed away from pneumonia. Harris understands completely Robert’s
sense of belonging with animals because Harris, too, feels acceptance in
the animal world—specifically, at sea: “out of the air and into the water.
Out of my world and into theirs… They aren’t any friendlier—the fish, you
know. But they accept you there. As if you might belong, if you wanted to.
It’s not like here” (93). They both feel as though they belong with animals,
and thus they belong together as well.
In his article “Buggering With History: Sexual Warfare &
Historical Reconstruction in Timothy Findley’s The Wars,” Shane Rhodes
argues that “[Findley’s] portrayal of male war relations seems based on
violence and predation” (Rhodes 45). I would like to argue that it is not
male, but man’s (as in human) relations in war that are based on violence,
and this is the reason Robert simultaneously rejects faith in humanity.
Robert sees that in war, human qualities are lacking in morals. They do
unthinkable acts of evil: “A: men would not do such things and, B: they
could not. Then they did” (Findley 132). Murder to the extent of the First
World War was appalling, and yet it was committed by people just like us.
When officer Levitt reads his excerpt from Clausewitz on War, he cites:
“Clausewitz says the true basis of combat is man to man” (87). Though in
the context of the book Clausewitz is referring to man versus artillery, I
would argue that Findley is suggesting that all war really is the fighting and
murdering of humans by other humans and that all war does is reveal the
soldier in man.
Journal of Student Writing
Number 36
All of the sexual acts in The Wars are also extremely violent.
Robert compares Taffler and the Swede having sex to David and Goliath.
Robert’s own sex with Barbara is described similarly by Juliet: “I knew in a
cool, clear way at the back of my mind that this was ‘making love’—but the
shape confused me. The shape and the violence” (160). Finally, the
violence and sense of combat in the rape scene demonstrates the lack of
morality of humans. Rape is intrinsically a violation, but the real
significance of this rape is that, “his assailants, who he’d thought were
crazies, had been his fellow soldiers” (175). It was not the mentally
challenged men (people who typically get negatively dehumanized) that
committed this evil act, but the men who are supposed to be his
companions. Humanity in war, therefore, lacks any moral values, which is
why Robert identifies so much with the ethics and morals of animals, who
do not engage in acts of war but, at most, survival.
In conclusion, animals shape Robert Ross’s identity by providing
his moral standards, whereas humans in war lack any sense of morality.
This leads him to value dehumanization and reject faith in humanity. The
essence of this statement lies in the moment just before Robert shoots
Captain Leather and takes off with the horses. Robert has a sort-of epiphany regarding the relationship man has to animals: “if an animal had done
this—we would call it mad and shoot it” (184). As humans, we see ourselves so superior to animals, and yet had they committed the acts of violence done during The War, we would consider them monstrous creatures.
So that begs the question—what kind of creature are we?
Works Cited
Findley, Timothy. The Wars. 1977. Reprint. Toronto: the Penguin Group,
2005. Print.
Rhodes, Shane. "Buggering With History: Sexual Warfare and Historical
Reconstruction in Timothy Findley's 'The Wars'." Canadian Literature
159 (1998): 38-53. Print.